Much of the long awaited Pew Forum for Religion Report is not news at all. The Mainline has declined. . . yadda, yadda, yadda. But the interesting stuff includes:
Good News:
Religious Faith is a Choice, Not a Habit
Fewer Stick to Family Faiths
Poll Finds a Fluid Religious Life
And Not So Good News:
The fastest growing spiritual group is "unaffiliated."
Behind Evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholics, "unaffiliated" is the fourth largest "religious group." Unlike earlier years, they are not necessarily atheistic or agnostic; they simply do not consider themselves part of a specific tradition of faith.
Spiritual? Yes.
Easily labeled? No.
A trend that will dramatically alter the way we plant new congregations, plan worship, gather believers, study Scripture, reach out to serve neighborhood and global needs? Let's hope so.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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5 comments:
There has been a bit of discussion about this on a preaching list I subscribe to...Figures are brighter on your side of the Atlantic than they are here, and certainly in the UK the percentage that self identified as Christian in the last census is huge compared to the number that actually make it to Sunday worship EVER...I get the impression that you still have a good proportion of adults somewhere in a church once a week...here it is considered really amazing if we make 10%. On the whole, though, there still seems to be a reluctance to wake up and smell the coffee...which is rather sobering, really. Glad that your churches are looking hard sooner rather than later
Kathryn - Always harder for a state church. But the emerging conversation seems very strong in the UK - is that your take?
The US' ecclesiastical history is wrapped in our US history too, but in a different way of course. Civil religion still alive and well here, but that is changing. All of our people are very/increasingly "spiritual" but many - those w/o the background/anything to reject - don't have the language to articulate what they believe or wish they believed.
The trouble with unaffiliated is this: it can more easily lead to uncommitted. Even the big "unaffiliated' churches are realizing that their seeker services are not producing dedicated disciples. I hope and pray that the emergent church truly does grow, and doesn't go the way of the Jesus movement of the 60s and Charismatic movement of the 70s...where are they now?
Stushie - you are right. We are asking people (even those who don't want to be "members") to ratchet up their commitment in some way - even if they choose not to join (and 20-somethings are not big joiners).
You're right, of course, that there is considerable encouragement for the emerging church from within the mainstream denominations (for example, I have a colleague who works as curate at the Cathedral, but with a specific brief to create a "fresh expression of church" in the city...so the mainstream church is actually funding fresh expressions)....but the impact feels small at the moment. Who knows...
The effect of being the established church is, I think, more or less lost now...except for the mission opportunity of being the church for EVERYONE's funeral/wedding if they live in your parish and don't opt out.
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